Thorn knew she’d seen him, had eyes for no other aboard, and had a presentiment that whenever they met again—in skirmish or full battle, alone or in the clash of armies—that would always be the case. It was almost as though he was daring her to try her worst, as he stood stock-still at his full height, admittedly even then not so great a target, while she nocked arrow to bow, pulled it to its full extension, and let fly in a single motion that was as smooth as it was deadly.
Wind and rain, distance and difficulty notwithstanding, Thorn knew the moment she fired that her shaft was destined for his heart. She believed him responsible for the ensorcellment of her city, the loss of her father, the death of all their dreams of peace; she would have those scales balanced (even if only a little) with his life. And he, poor noble clown, thanks to the link forged between them in the dungeon, felt enough empathy to allow her a decent chance to try.
The arrow crossed the rail…
…and Khory’s hand plucked it from the air.
Thorn blinked. He hadn’t been aware of her approach, nor seen her hand make its move. Ryn was impressed as well; the DemonChild’s speed and accuracy outstripped his, which he didn’t think possible.
“Are you daft?” Khory demanded of him, in uncanny mimicry of the shipmaster.
“Shouldn’t we seek cover,” Ryn suggested, “before she tries again? We’re still well within range.”
Another had joined the Princess on the point and it was immediately obvious that neither man nor mount was particularly pleased to be there. The Maizan Castellan grabbed Anakerie by the arm and yanked her from her stance, batting aside her reflexive slap in such a way that the attacking arm was pinned in a painful twist behind her back. Thorn found himself wishing for a bow of his own, to teach the Thunder Lord better manners.
“Get below,” Morag said, as implacable in her own way as the seas, “the lot o’ y’s. If y’ve any favors owed by the Powers Beyond, or better yet any Gods who’ll answer when y’ call, we could use the help.”
The cabins were far more spacious than Thorn would have believed from an outward examination of the hull. The largest was devoted to a communal living and dining area, with separate sleeping compartments farther forward. Storage lockers were at the very bow and stern of the boat and beneath the deck.
Thorn was the last down the companionway steps when they fully cleared the breakwater and got their first taste of what lay beyond. The lead swells struck the hull as though they were solid objects more than liquid, shaking the schooner along its whole length with such force that Thorn lost his footing and had to make a desperate grab to keep from falling. He ended up dangling like a monkey before finding his purchase once more and lowering himself to the marginal solidity of the deck itself. Only a wrenched shoulder for his troubles, which he had to figure was better than a twisted knee or back, or a possibly broken bone, the price he’d have paid for a nasty landing. He couldn’t stand erect, couldn’t stand at all without bracing himself against another object that was bolted to the deck or bulkheads (he couldn’t reach the ceiling); the boat’s movement had become far too lively.
Each wave they encountered hurled itself at the prow like a suicide charge, determined to be the one to smash the boat to bits. The contact threw their bodies forward, as any collision would on land, the shock most keenly felt from the shoulders up, their heads being the one part of their bodies most difficult to restrain. They suffered from getting bounced every which way; they suffered as keenly from the stress of keeping muscles tensed against the continual series of hard knocks. Bad as it was for the passengers, Thorn wondered how much worse for the ship herself, at what point would the stout wood of her hull give way against the merciless battering? They could hear water sluice across the deck, with the same angry sound it would make cast upon a hot griddle. There was a constant groan from the timbers as the hull flexed and warped from the pressure of the seas. The tumult was just as wild overhead, as every tack sent the booms from one side of the ship to the other with a tremendous crash, followed by the sound of lines being hauled through blocks and chains pulled speedily taut. The wind didn’t howl, it roared, which in turn drew wild laments from the rigging which to some sounded like defiance, to others sheerest agony.
There was no light, the boat’s movement was too violent and unpredictable to risk even a shielded lantern and the air quickly grew too damp to support most flames. There was sufficient ambient light to see up top, though that would change with sunset, but the cabin was little better than a cave. Elora and Geryn sat together, the Pathfinder doing his best to shield her, and master his own terror at the same time. Of them all, only Khory seemed unaffected by their ordeal; she appeared far more fascinated than upset by what was happening, as she was with everything. Stood to reason, Thorn conceded, using analytical thought to keep his fears at bay; a creature born of chaos would be right at home in the middle of such riotous pandemonium. Elora, poor thing, was shivering and sobbing; they were all bitterly cold, the air dank from seepage through the portholes and the seams of the hatches.
“Not good,” Thorn heard from Ryn.
“Is that a general observation, my friend, or a reference to something specific?”
The Wyr’s response was a coughlike bark, offered with a lively bob of the head that Thorn interpreted as a laugh, which was good because Thorn had attempted a joke.
Ryn clambered carefully from his perch at the forward end of the cabin, the attention he paid to every movement eloquent proof of how serious and dangerous their situation was. His steps were accompanied by a shallow sloshing sound, which in turn prompted Thorn to lean forward to confirm what that had to mean. The ship chose that moment to go through a wicked corkscrew motion that pitched him forward and down as the bow dropped into a trough, then sharply up again as the wave beyond shoved it skyward. For a frightening moment he found himself airborne, until Khory snatched him to her with a sure-sighted grab of his safety harness.
“Water,” he squawked, mostly concerned with regaining both physical and mental equilibrium as both mind and belly did flip-flops. His stomach heaved and he tasted bile, barely managing to choke back anything more. Elora wasn’t so fortunate. She doubled over, vomiting miserably onto a deck awash to the depth of an inch. It was an awful sight—Thorn didn’t want to imagine how much worse to experience—as the child coughed and sobbed and retched some more, long past the point her stomach was empty. The sudden, gusting stench was indescribable; it proved more than Geryn could bear either and he was just as sick.
Air swept down the hatchway with a squeaking clump of rubber-soled sea boots as Morag dropped among them. Her face twisted at the sight, but more from the presence of the water itself than the fetid waste floating on it. A glance evaluated both the situation and the state of the passengers.
“You”—she jabbed a thumb at Taksemanyin, then at Khory—“time y’ made y’rselves useful. One pump for’ard, the other behind this panel. Clear the bilges hard as y’ can, till y’r hearts split or I say dif’rent. Ryn, show her how.”
Then she rounded on Thorn.
“We can’t go on, Drumheller,” she told him flat, and behind her words was a string of profanities strong enough to make him blush, had he the color to spare.
“Perhaps I can—” he began, but she waved him silent.
“Welcome to look, even t’ try, wizard, but y’ll pardon me, I don’t hold my breath. See what I mean on deck.”
“The others?”
She looked actually sorry.
“Stay where they are. Safer, believe me.”
“Geryn…?”
“Guard her with my life!” the trooper pledged. “Damn yer soul, Drumheller, for puttin’ her at such risk!”
He had no words for Elora, and she offered only sobs in return as she huddled herself tight as a drenched kitten in Geryn’s arms.
Khory hooked his arm.
“Look after you,” she said.
> “I’ll take care of myself,” he snapped. “Elora’s the important one.” Then he caught himself and moderated his voice. “Do as Morag says, Khory. The boat sinks, we’re all lost.”
“Trust me,” Morag assured her. “He’ll be well.”
For years Thorn had lived with spells that blunted the effect of weather. He kept himself dry in monsoons, cool in deserts, surviving the worst nature had to throw against him. But he’d never seen a storm like this.
The wind was more fierce than he could ever remember, lashing at him with such force that he could only moderate its direct effect on him; there was no way to spare the others or the boat. They looked as though they’d been in battle. Cuts and bruises abounded, one of the crew clutching a hand to his chest where a runaway line had sliced it bloody, almost to the breastbone. There were no crests to the waves, the wind blew them flat, sending the tops slicing through the air as spume, the water like oil, blacker even than the sky. Loud as the storm had seemed below, it was no comparison to what assaulted him in the open. He thought of all the dragons that ever were, compressed into a single awful beast and that monster roaring with force enough to crack the world to its core.
“Can. You. Help?” Morag put her lips to his ear and bellowed in a voice already savagely torn.
He cast his InSight free, to gain a sense of the tempest. Didn’t take long, wasn’t a happy answer.
“It’s wind and sea,” he said. “Wholly natural forces, nothing magical. I can’t see the end of it.”
“What I feared.” Morag nodded in harsh agreement. “Wind’s against us, water’s against us. Not only the wave fronts pushed by the wind, but the ocean current as well. We push into the teeth of it, we’ll lose the hull, sure. Seams are flexing by the bow, Drumheller, working themselves more loose with every hit. She’s well made, my ship, but it’s like being hit again and again by a bat’ring ram. One of us’ll have t’ give, an’ it won’t be the waves. We can’t cut across the face o’ the storm, neither, we’re sure to broach. Our only hope’s to run before it.”
“And that isn’t much, is it?” Worse, that would take them back the way they’d come, toward Angwyn, but he didn’t need to speak that realization aloud; Morag was as aware of it as he.
“I told you, wizard, we’re safer on the land. Won’t lie, wind like this, we’ll have t’ reef the sails tight as they’ll go, then add a sea anchor t’ hold us steady.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“Coming about’s the bitch. Keep us afloat through that, we’ll maybe have a chance. Whate’er hap’ns, y’ canna let us broach, swell’ll capsize us easier’n flippin’ a coin.”
They maintained their course until all was ready, enduring the relentless pounding while Thorn struggled to hold the wheel and Morag and Shando hauled a sail from its locker and threaded an anchor chain through its gromets. The chain, in turn, was bound to the stoutest hawser aboard, a rope only marginally less thick than Thorn’s wrist, and finally secured to a pair of bollards by the stern.
“ ’Nother reason not to get this wrong,” Shando told Thorn, as he took the Nelwyn’s place at the wheel. “Don’t want to yank the transom off the stern.”
The deck was perpetually awash, often to his knees, no problem for the much taller Daikini but a serious one for him as he struggled to establish the focus needed for his spell and keep his footing. The harness might keep him from being washed overboard, but a misstep could still leave him badly hammered. Worse, with all the activity centered about the cockpit, he couldn’t help but be in the way. He thought of returning to the cabin, and from his feet below felt as much as heard the rhythmic kalumpa kalumpa of the pumps. He shook his head; he couldn’t go back into that hole.
The hell with pride; he was about to demand some help when a pair of sodden arms pulled him from his seat and guided him over the cabin roof toward the mainmast.
“Thank you, Morag,” he gasped, as breathless from his preparations as if he’d run up a mountainside. The actual spell would be far worse, a reality the woman readily appreciated.
“Gave your lady friend my word,” she said as she shackled him in place. “Don’t y’ talk, don’t y’ worry. Long as there’s a mast, y’ll stay put. Just make sure we keep the mast, hey?”
“If there’s a way to bring us through, I’ll find it.”
“Damn well better. But I gotta ask, Drumheller, is she worth it? Seems t’ me, world did fine before Elora Danan took the stage.”
“Bavmorda—”
“Whole damn world between Nockmaar an’ Angwyn, she was nowt t’ me.”
“Whole damn world, Morag, but still only one world. It’s a long way from your foot to your heart. Get gangrene in your toe, how long before it kills you? We can’t stay apart any longer; we have to find a way to live together or some of us won’t live at all.”
“Y’ think she c’n do that?”
“I’ve seen Tir Asleen, Morag. I’ve cataloged all the broken places of the world.” He waved an arm to encompass the storm. “This is the alternative. Chaos and war and shadows on the land and soul.”
“Morag!” from Shando. “We’re ready!”
For all his brave talk, for all the heartfelt beliefs that bulwarked his courage, there was a moment, right at the start, of a doubt so fundamental it nearly destroyed them all.
He was a Nelwyn, the smallest of those races not bound to the Veil Folk (as the brownies were), with ambition to match their stature. The essence of Nelwyn life was simplicity in thought and deed. Work in harmony with the world and all its beings. Hard to be arrogant, especially in the ways that came so naturally to Daikini, when you’re the size of every predator’s favorite prey. Do None Harm, was the rule, Think None Harm. And with that came the codicil, unwritten in any codex of law but passed down from generation to generation with the inexorable force of a glacier moving to the sea: Above All, Never Be Noticed.
He’d chosen to involve himself in the larger world, to take action when any sane, self-respecting Nelwyn would have walked away. As indeed, all of them had, which he discovered when he returned from the ruins of Tir Asleen to find valley and village deserted, family, friends, neighbors spirited away to a safer, secret place. Leaving him alone among his kind in all the waking world. He didn’t understand why. The urges, the dreams, the desires that drove him then, drove him still, and remained mostly mystery. Each time he took a step, he yearned that it would return him to the life he was born to, the joys he feared were forever lost. Every moment he thought of Elora Danan, the love he felt for her was twisted by a resentment at what that love, that dedication, had cost.
He wanted it to end.
In this instant it almost did.
He became wind and sea, his sense of self expanding exponentially to encompass the forces plunging through him. He stood on the floor of the ocean, in such deeps that nothing swam there remotely resembling any fish he’d ever seen, whose denizens generated their own light because here was a darkness no sun could possibly illuminate. He reared to the top of the sky, a place of extremes, where night turned as cold as day blazed hot, beyond the layer of air that sustained all life below, and into a realm as vast as the stars were numberless. Awareness reeled and he felt a choking gust of terror that he’d somehow been returned to the Demon’s domain as he beheld the world as a great globe, curving down and away on every side, spinning through an endless void.
There was a piece of the Demon in this, as there was likewise a foulness to the weather, a taint that told him that while the storm was natural, its genesis was anything but. A glance showed him the facade of the world—clouds, wind, rain, sea, land—but a blink of the eye transformed his perceptions to reveal the elemental forces that generated those effects. Patterns of heat and cold and pressure, affecting the water and the air above.
In that flash of terrible transcendence, he understood the way the physical world worked, saw how the energies of the storm could be
diverted and moderated. The power was his for the taking, had he the courage to seize it.
He hesitated, heard sudden laughter, the Deceiver’s voice, mockery leavened by true regret. Recognition that he was unworthy colored by sorrow that he should come to such a moment.
“Who are you?” he screamed, in the voice of the wind. “Why are you doing this?” With the power of the wave.
Morag threw the wheel hard over, her ship spinning as though mounted on a pole. Shando and the crewmen hurled the sea anchor over the stern, pulling frantically on the lines in order to open the mouth of the sail wide. From on high, Thorn’s spirit form saw at once that the maneuver wasn’t fast enough, the waves came too close together, the schooner cresting one rank at the head of the turnabout but not completing the maneuver before she dropped fully into the trough. She was still mostly broadside when the following wave swept the hull upward, everyone on deck grabbing frantically for handholds as it heeled close to vertical. Ears presented him with crashes from below as cupboards popped from mountings, a scream that had to be Elora.
His moment of supremacy had passed, he knew that. His own hesitation, the ridicule of the Deceiver, had cost him a chance to do the greatest good by moderating the storm as a whole. His poor alternative was to act here, to save Morag’s ship, which he did by slapping the waves briefly flat, gentling the swells enough for the shipmaster to regain a measure of control and put her stern square in the face of the sea.
He was thankful for the spray and rain; they hid his tears.
“Did well,” the crewman congratulated him, in ignorance, as he released Thorn from the mast.
“Did nothing,” was the savage retort, and he saw when he caught Morag’s eyes that she knew it, too. For all that, there was no condemnation in her gaze. He’d done his best, and that was all she asked from anyone.
He collapsed to knees, to his rump, a forlorn figure at the base of the mast, presence almost wholly forgotten as Shando and the crewman hauled down the sails and lashed the booms tight. The mainmast was bare, its sail fully stowed. Only the barest slivers of canvas showed from foremast and jib, sufficient to maintain headway and no more.
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